The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is a protocol used to transmit musical instructions to a musical device or instrument that is capable of converting the instructions into musical sounds. MIDI data is transmitted over a MIDI cable to the devices. MIDI data may also be stored in an architected file format called "Standard MIDI File" (*.mid) format.
MIDI is an event-oriented protocol. There are note events, tempo events, controller events, etc. There are also standard MIDI text events that can contain text data, such as trademarks, song titles, copyright information, etc. Such standard MIDI text events are commonly stored in mid files. However, since the standard MIDI text events are for the benefit of humans, they are typically not transmitted to the musical instruments. A problem arises in that certain information, such as legal and factual information, may be separated from the musical data intentionally or unintentionally. Further, if an instrument can display text, but the device transmitting the data discards text events, the text will not be displayed. A need arises for a technique by which text data may be transmitted to MIDI devices.